The Meaning of a Smile
by Bhryn Astairre
Summary: The smile she left him was the mystery he could never unravel.


_(( A/N: Don't worry guys, I haven't given up on Heart Less Love or Longest Journey or even Breathe. I just wanted to do something a little shorter whilst working stuff out. B xxx ))_

**The Meaning of a Smile**

_I am not here, I am gone  
__I am the sadness in your song;  
__I am the wind from the east  
__Your morning rest, evening peace…_

_The barest lift of sweetest woe  
__In a smile you saw but will never know._

---------------------------------

_It was, looking back, that which defined my memories of her._

_She never raised her voice, she never really threw any kind of tantrum into getting her own way and when things were stacked against her, it filled her only with delight and happiness to have a challenge to scale. She always cooked the evening meal, healed the injured, tended the sick and was so integrated into our lives with those quiet words and immutable confidence that perhaps the abruptness of her departure was too much for us to understand, at that time._

_It was too much for me to truly cope with, so like before, I coped by shutting myself away and telling myself that it was all my fault. No one else could be to blame for overlooking that she was gone, that had fallen away from our outstretched hands into oblivion; that my position as 'leader' was one that I had failed to fulfil. I had lost her, and the humiliating pain of being alone, of being to blame was a sour balm to my broken heart._

_I knew I was falling in love. It was a strange feeling, this winsome abandon. The heady madness of diving down into something rich and sweet and embracing it with arms wide open, the thrilling fear of the unknown and what the next day could possibly bring. There were secret moments when I would try to smile, when I would think of her and only of her and I would dream of her alone. Listening to her talk and move her hands in graceful motions, to watch her laugh and smell the scent of her flowers that lingered around her wherever she went. To simply be beside her each and every day was a blessing I was too lucky to count, a blessing that I treasured above everything._

_So why is it then, that when those darker days were coming, she hid it away from us?_

_Did she know?_

…_did she know?_

_That question drives me to the brink of exhaustion even until this day, thinking back on her and what she said or did. Thinking back to her and me and this feeling, always coming around in circles that never seem to end, and each time I offer up that question: did she know?_

_Standing in her pink dress, jacket rippling in the wind and looking sadly up at the rising building, the blocky chunks of stone and the altar where blood was stained not for the first time. Her hair was wild and her eyes were distant, thoughtful. As clear as glass, she looked at me and I cannot decipher that look still._

_But the remaining memory is that of the smile._

_The smile she gave me on the altar of a crystal world, the broken shards of shell and crystalline singing of voices dead, gone and departed of this cold world. The smile that ignored the tears on her cheeks as she closed those lustrous eyes, widening it, deepening the unknown held within; that smile which offered everything and nothing as a silent explanation. Drifting wisps of hair that I reached to hold, the cheek slick with a tear I cupped and the last smile she gave me._

_Only now, after this, after so long I am tormented by that vision and I cannot find the answers in myself. Those answers were within that smile, I am sure._

_So tell me, won't someone tell me, the meaning of her smile?_

-----------------------------------------------

The coffee was a little too black for his tastes. The total lack of milk may have contributed to this, but to be polite and because he didn't want to make a fuss, he drank it anyway. Hand and mug came back to the table in the quiet of the afternoon, the clock ticking quietly away the minutes that hung silent between them.

His eyes lifted a trifle to the thoughtful profile of his best friend, her eyes turned away and her chin resting in her hand, fingers crooked on her cheek and lips set into a musing little pout. The dark fall of raven hair trickled over her brow, threatening to dance into those thoughtful claret coloured eyes, and despite her air of distance, he had never felt more comfortable around her.

Tifa Lockhart had been one of his companions on that journey a lifetime ago to get rid of a menace called Sephiroth, to save the planet from crumbling underneath their very feet. She had pushed him on fearlessly, she had voiced her distinct opinions when it mattered the most and best of all, and she had refused to pause or give up. Tifa Lockhart said that the time for action was not the time for thinking. Days, weeks, months and even years now, after the shock had worn dim and grief dulled to a throb in the hollow heart of absence, Tifa had become thoughtful and retrospective.

Cloud Strife, the once helplessly introverted child of a village destroyed so long ago, his golden hair glimmering and his own expression bland and blank, sometimes wondered if Tifa was thinking the same as he was. He didn't want to intrude though, and despite all of this, these silent afternoons had yawned endless between them seemingly, aching forever with the need to be filled with words and tears and memories that they were all too afraid to share.

How could it have been that they had drifted so far from everything they had promised?

The distance between them all wasn't simply the silence between two friends; Vincent and Reeve and Yuffie were off doing god only knows what to help rebuild the world after the madness. Barrett was back in Corel and Cid half a world away with Shera, even Red was far away. All that lay between them was a phone call, but Cloud didn't know if he should bother anyone with his thoughts. They seemed a little crazy if you had to ask him.

It was almost three years now since she had passed away.

He could sometimes feel the tingle of her soft skin brushing his; he could recall her laugh, her walk, the way she held herself and even the way she spoke words with delight at making those very sounds. Cloud tortured himself each night with the dark dreams of feeling her body stiffen with agony before falling limp in his helpless hands, the thickness of her blood as it oozed and slowed, the sweep of her dark golden-brown hair and the eyes, not quite shut and staring up towards the sky.

But most of all, the smile she left him with, painting her perfect lips; it burned him.

So he had assumed that this afternoon like many others before would slip into tomorrow without any event to break it. At least, Cloud would have thought so, until Tifa finally turned those eyes to him, piercing him to the spot.

"So, why don't you ask?" She said softly. There was no need for her to raise her voice, he would listen anyway, for the sound of human company, and for the words he dreaded hearing or saying.

"Ask?"

"About her…"

"Because… because…"

"About Aerith, its okay to say her name, I don't think she would mind. You haven't really said much about her, or it. Or even about those times you almost fell away from the world." Tifa picked up her mug and swilled the black liquid about, frowning a little. "You don't know what to ask, is that it?"

"You're not so much better, Tifa."

"I suppose not. Everyone has their secrets and their lies."

"I…"

"Shall I go first then? Will it help you to have an example, Cloud?" The mug clinked off the table, setting off his awareness that they were still in the kitchen. He glanced about the small room, the battered little fridge, cheerful flowers that Tifa brought in each day, neatly pressed pile of clothes and the coffee jug, still steaming faintly. His eyes riveted quickly back to hers; partly with fear.

"Sure, you go first."

Tifa nodded and leaned back, putting her hands on her legs and looking towards the window, where the sky was just visible over the rise of buildings in Edge city. "It's been so long, since she decided to go away. We've been given this life, this gift from her. It's a wonderful gift to have, something she gave up, and I worry that I'm not doing enough. I think Aerith would have liked it if I chased my dreams, if I went looking for something else, far away."

"Far away?" He echoed.

"When she left that night, I didn't know that the next time I saw her…" Tifa swallowed and sighed, "I tried to tell her what she meant to me."

Cloud gave a start, the coffee mug jumping in his hands and it was only with his fast reflexes that he avoided staining the table. "M-me…mea…"

"Is it wrong?" Tifa snapped her eyes to him, not moving her head, but the question and defiance hung there. "Is it wrong to love someone? Maybe it wasn't conventional, sure. But you don't help who you love, only that you do love. I didn't expect her to return it, only accept it. That I'd be there for her, that I'd help her build whatever dreams she wanted."

"Oh…"

"She was fine with it and she just smiled at me," The eyes filled suddenly, "When she was probably so frightened it was killing her, she just smiled at me and said, 'Then let's chase them together!'. What a way to go, what a cliff-hanger… what a moment to pin hope on. If only she'd said something… and sometimes I wonder, maybe if I hadn't said anything… maybe it would have been… easier on her."

"Easy enough to fall away?"

"But she…" Tifa sighed and looked back at him fully. "But that's how it turned out. And I know you felt something of the same for her, as I did. You took it so hard."

Cloud frowned, trying to order that in his head and then said slowly, "She really was always smiling."

"That's Aerith for you," Tifa smiled.

"Lying there, in my arms, dying… slipping away…" He knitted his brows, "She didn't say anything to me, not a thing. She just… smiled."

"Huh?"

"Yeah, that's all she left me with, a smile. I want… I want to know what she meant when she smiled at me like that. I want to understand the meaning of her smile."

"The meaning of a smile, eh?" Tifa rubbed her hand through her hair then nodded, "So it's about remembering her, right?"

"I suppose it is."

"Then, we should go collecting memories. Maybe by looking together for traces of Aerith, we can find the last things she wanted to say to us. Help me chase my dreams, Cloud, and I'll help you get her last smile back," Tifa patted her chest, "In your heart, warm, loving, right where and how it should be."

"A smile in my heart," Cloud looked at his friend, "You make it all sound so plausible."

"Perhaps, have a little faith Cloud."

"In what?"

"In Aerith."

Putting faith in her didn't seem so hard – they all had done for so long. That she would somehow make everything work for them, that somehow things would work out right if only she was there, walking with them no matter what. Years had passed… could this be his only chance to unravel those mysteries she left him with? Would she even walk at his side again, as he searched for it?

"Alright," he said finally, "…alright."

----------------------------------------------

A week later they finally had the opportunity to take some time off together and with Tifa gripping hard to his back, he took Fenrir to the wasteland that was Midgar, the ruins standing where not only had all of this originally come together for all of them, but the scene of many epic battles. Shin-Ra had moved their base of operations from the capital city to Edge because of the instability of this environment, not to mention the persistent rumours about Deep-Ground that continued to filter up through the gossip on street corners. Fearless together, they walked side by side into the dense urban jungle of broken metal spires and the grass that wilfully attempted to continue living.

They knew the vague direction of where they were going, Tifa looking left and right at the remains of a place she had called her home for far too long. Cloud was scrutinising the area for the remnant of the place he could easily associate with the memory of the girl who had passed away and when he found it, drew Tifa closer to the church that was really falling apart now with the pool of brilliant water in the middle of it.

He poised himself on the lapping edge of it and looked down at his own reflection, the grave features that had trouble softening into smiles and the echo of the water and the wind, softly rustling flowers that were determined to keep on growing here in this otherworldly elegance. Tifa stood a little behind him, her breath held without realising it, but he could tell she was trying to hold this moment there in her heart.

Someone had once said that moments pass, like everything passes and that every single person is simply looking for that one perfect moment they can hang their hopes on.

"It was here," he said suddenly, surprised at his self, "That I met her for the second time. We probably wouldn't be able to find the first place; it was in the sector that came crashing down in part of the Deep-Ground wars. But when I fell…" He looked up, almost able to see past the sunshine that very hole in the roof that he had made. As he looked up, Tifa followed his motion, her dark eyes squinting too.

"What a great height to fall from."

"I thought I would die."

"…I could have reached harder…I…" Tifa shook her head, "That's a lie, I couldn't have reached any more than what I did for you. Maybe that's called a twist of fate."

"I remember it so clearly, the rush of air, the sudden panic, waiting for my life to flash before my eyes so I could look at it and say; 'Yeah, that was dumb of me' and pretend to be cliché about it, say I'd do better next time. It's funny; it didn't flash at all before my eyes…"

_There was air cushioning his body as he fell backwards from the ivory fingers, reaching for him, the dark eyes and the horror in the darkness that he felt himself dive into unwillingly. Bits of broken wood and metal spars battered at him, each one a bruise that he would count later and count him lucky for. _

_This was dying._

_There would be a sharp impact but shock would see him safely off before any real agonising pain could set in. His blond hair whipped about in the air and he waited for the moment when it would all start playing. The movie of his life that no one would pay even ten gil to get a ticket for to see. Not even worth a review in Midgar Film Weekly._

_But there was nothing._

_A crunch of bones and wood and nothing, sweet oblivion…_

_Except the sweet voice of an angel coming to kill him, coming to reap his soul from his corpse and let it fly free into the light of the Planet. But he didn't let go, instead the eyes opened to the broken world and the lovely young woman bent over him in concern, her hand brushing his wounds, or where the wounds had been. No pain, nothing, only the sweetness of her voice and the sudden smile she gave him upon seeing him awake. "Oh!"_

…_her name was Aerith, her name was birdsong and sunshine and deep secrets and dark mystery. She was soft and open and free, like the air and the earth and all things that Cloud didn't know how to be. She ran with him from the world of darkness, into the sweet skies and away from the Turks that dogged their every step, until she was sitting at the table in her kitchen as if nothing had ever happened to make her catch her breath and it was this strange but sweet girl that had saved him from the steps towards, had been the first to take hold of his hand and draw him away from the darkness._

…and even now this church filled him with such sharp memories that he felt his breath catch.

"I should have told her she couldn't come along with us," he said softly, "I don't know why I agreed. Why did I do that?"

"You know," Tifa said, just as quiet, as though their voices would shatter the serenity of the crumbling church and the iridescent waters, "for the longest time we all assumed that we were just following you. You seemed like the natural kind of leader, enigmatic and serious and with the vendetta to fill. We all clung to that, because we wanted to think we shared those same ideals. But she didn't, she was the only one who wasn't out for revenge, or hate or murder or… or any of it. Out of all of us, maybe she had the most noble and notable cause."

"And what was that?"

"Finding her self, finding the secrets behind her or maybe it was saving something." There were tears in her eyes and she choked; the words hard to form, "Saving us, maybe, from what we would become? Maybe she was the real reason why we followed so hard, because we wanted to believe we could become better people and leave it all behind us. Maybe because we couldn't find a way to escape our past, and only she could… I don't know, it just feels like Aerith was the main reason why we stuck through it. Killing, murder, revenge – it sounds so great, doesn't it? What's one small sacrifice…?"

"Tifa, you're not making much sense."

"This place, this was Aerith's place and we should leave it just like it is. Children come here and play in the summer in the water, sick people pray here and the world brings joy out from the very core here. Let's leave here… there has to be other places, other things."

Cloud skittered his gaze over the rippling water surface, trying to think of somewhere that would be meaningful, that would give him some insight into her, when it was Tifa who spoke up boldly.

"Junon."

"Huh?"

"Let's go there."

"Why Junon?" He looked at her, puzzled.

"Don't you remember? That's where she saw her first Airship. Where she wanted to see the skies… maybe there's something there?"

…_like the air and earth and all things in between…_

------------------------------------------------------

Junon was vastly different to the way that Cloud remembered it being. It was shinier, cleaner than the junky graveyard of rusting parts that he recalled. Rufus had cleaned up his act as far as the ex-Soldier could see, and it was doing a world of good for those who lived there. The sea sparkled brightly and the place where the massive cannon had been was now being worked heavily on for some kind of transcontinental railcar. It was a clever and almost ingenious project, one that Reeve had worked closely with Rufus on and one that Cloud felt he could approve of wholeheartedly. The power for the cars came from a resident materia user rather than burning raw mako.

It was because of this project that both Vincent and Yuffie were in town. Yuffie had taken to calling herself 'Mr. Valentine's aide' and often, with a mature sense of wryness, referred to herself as his 'lesser known sidekick outside of Wutai'. Vincent, in contrast to his sharp and witty little colleague, was still dour and dark as ever, wrapped up in his own thoughts. But in a change to his usual affections, he wore a simple dark suit and more to both Cloud and Tifa's surprise, he had cut his hair. It was still long in the front enough to be called 'banged' but the back was shorter and fluffy, smoothed down with a thin veneer of gel to prevent the 'ruffled chocobo' look.

They met at a small café overlooking the airport, where Tifa ordered her coffee black and Cloud settled for water. Yuffie arrived punctually, settling down with two clipboards. Her hair had grown enough that she clipped it back, but she still showed her pride in her nation and her own honourable profession in the clothes she chose to keep wearing, as well as the headband of green material with the Kisaragi clan symbol on the forehead protector. "Hey, glad you didn't order for me. They do some nice chocolate cake here I heard, couldn't resist it!"

"Still eating too many sweets," Tifa chided gently.

"Still trying to pretend you're my older, wiser sister," muttered the ninja.

"As if you don't like it."

"Vincent sends his apologies, or he would if he wasn't so busy out on the cable wires today. Bit of insurgence, you know what the radical sects are like. Of course, they only needed Vincent and I'm not about to go mothering after him – he wants to play tightrope he can. When he cracks his head open after falling off, I'll consider stopping laughing long enough to make a fuss of the windb- thank you!" The chocolate cake arrived mid-Yuffie-tirade about her co-worker and it took some effort for Cloud not to laugh as openly as Tifa did.

Some things had never changed it seemed. Yuffie still complained about Vincent and Vincent continued to try and leave the capable younger ninja out of danger. Even though, Cloud had to admit, Yuffie had grown into a deadly adversary, one that was more than able to handle small insurgent sects of radical groups. But Vincent was Vincent and Yuffie was grumpy, and the world was right for a moment.

Yuffie attacked the cake with her fork, pausing to look at Cloud with her stormy dark grey eyes, and then to Tifa, "So, what's up?"

"We're on a journey," he said slowly, unsure how to break it to her.

"What kind?"

"Like… a… uh…"

"Memories of someone important, despite being gone." Tifa folded her plain white napkin, looking from Yuffie to the window outside, "Memories of someone who should have been there, but isn't."

"Oh, you… sure it's okay to drag all this out again?"

"We need to be sure; we need to be sure exactly what she meant."

"Meant by what?"

So they explained to her the smile and the last words she had given them, those last enduring snippets of someone they had slip from their hands. They tried to use as many or as few words as possible; they tried to express themselves properly and wondered if they had failed miserably.

But it was Yuffie who finally broke that silence hanging there, when she had licked clean her fork, "I always figured Teef was in love with her, but you're more difficult to read, to an outsider like me, y'know? But there are a great many things I wanted to ask her but never found the time to, there's a lot of things we all should have said, but didn't. I don't think it's anything special in the fact that everyone loses someone they love, but perhaps it's even more special because of the extraordinary things we've all done."

"I should have asked her, how she could smile after such a dark past, what the trick was."

Both Tifa and Cloud almost broke their necks, turning at speed to look up into the face of Vincent who was conservatively adjusting his tie as if he hadn't just walked in directly off a battlefield. He drew a chair closer to their table and sat down with effortless grace and casualness, that 'cool' factor just oozing from him, Cloud mused.

"It was Aerith, after all, who gave us today," The man had a voice like gravel, dark and soothing to listen to. "We clung hard to what we were, but more than anything, she was the future."

"The future, yes, she did talk about it a lot didn't she?"

"I'm convinced she knew something we didn't, long before we all set out. Did she leave the city, her artificial home, knowing she would never see it again?"

…_she bowed her head to the circle of lights dancing on the horizon, so her hair hid her face and how her lips moved. Cloud was not a religious man, for there was little much of such faith to go around these days: religion had died out almost as soon as the Cetra had, but he harboured the deep impression that she was praying silently._

_It was because he was stood looking at her then, and no one else was, that when she lifted her face, her green eyes shone with rather more wetness than he was sure should be in eyes, and her face was tinged pink on the cheeks._

"_It won't be the same," she sighed and then gave a laugh, noticing his searching look, "But I suppose nothing is, when you go away and come back. Everything changes when you've seen more of the world, right Cloud?"_

"…_right."_

_She was always smiling at him…_

"Maybe she was, I just thought it was a bit strange at the time."

"Aerith was far more prepared for it, than any of us," Yuffie reached idly for the mint that had come with Tifa's black coffee. "She knew, more than any of us, what it means to live and to die."

"To live and to die, what does that mean?"

"It's a Wutai phrase, said to ninja and samurai when they come of age to enter real service to the state. 'To know the Truth, of what it means to Live and to Die'. A closer translation of the actual ancient phrase would be more like; 'To know that Death is nothing, Life is nothing and only the Truth of what you do with your time here matters'."

"Kind of spiritual."

"But true, people say how hard life is… it's not hard at all to be alive. You're born, how much simpler can that be? The part where you actually 'live', that's the hard part and not many people get it. People can go through their whole lives, never sparing a thought for anyone but themselves, never thinking about tomorrow."

"I get it," Cloud said softly.

"Finally!" Yuffie laughed, leaning back and giving Vincent a faint little smirk. "He gets it."

"Get it, Cloud? I don't understand," Tifa confessed.

"To live, in this world, is a hard thing to do. But, each day is a gift from the Planet, we should have treasured. We didn't. We squandered its gifts. We made war, we hated, we tried revenge and murder and sinking deeper and deeper into despair. Aerith knew the meaning of what it is to live and perhaps…"

"Oh," Tifa said, slowly getting it, "…and because she did, she gave up that gift for us too."

"Is that what her smile meant, did she mean I was worth the gift of life?"

"…_One day, we'll ride that airship Cloud, promise me!"_

Vincent unfolded Tifa's napkin, revealing the embroidered rose in red stitch, "If you can't find the answer here, try looking somewhere else."

----------------------------------------------------

_Her hair snapped, pennant like, behind her as she ran from the house, trying so hard to hide the tears in her eyes, trying to escape his outstretched hand and he stood there, rooted fast to the ground and unable to follow her, when Tifa had instead sprinted after her. He didn't know what to say to her and only those hope filled gazes of two people he felt he should know lanced him to his heart, so he bled there silently._

_He never knew what to say._

The village was different now. There was a collection of smaller houses and a larger franchise of shops being built as the land around the failed rector was being completely renovated into new living space and a fresher approach to the area.

Tifa was the one who said first as the stood close to the motorcycle with her arms folded, her soft white linen shirt creasing and her dark eyes sad, "Zack."

Zack…

It was from this small town, Gongaga, where he had come. A young man, cocky but charming, handsome but humble, honest and sweet as the day was long and with a 'way with the ladies' that she had spoken of so deprecatingly.

Zack. Zack… her first love, Zack.

When she had said that, what did she mean?

"She said," Cloud struggled painfully with the words, "she said to me on the slide, outside of sector seven when we saw you, that her first boyfriend… first class… her first love. Her first love, does that mean there… was another?"

"Maybe, maybe she was just trying to remember him."

"Did she really have to?"

"Oh?" Tifa looked at him, "I don't get it?"

"Aerith was Cetra. If she wanted to, she could have seen his spirit, the remains of his memories any time that she wanted to."

"Remains of memories, huh?"

"Ghosts I guess, they're called?"

"To be a ghost…" Tifa smiled, "Maybe. But, whatever he was to Aerith, he was also deeply involved in our past too."

The night of flames, he could see it reflected in her dark eyes. His skin still prickled with the intense heat as he tried so vainly to rescue his mother from the fires that had razed his town to the ground, to ashes and memories of ashes. He still felt them, burning him and melting him until he could run away into nothing. The cries of the villagers, then dragging himself, painfully through the mud after Tifa… who chased Zack… who chased…

Sephiroth.

Zack, who had struggled so hard to protect Nibelheim, Zack, who had helped Cloud escape his tank in the basement of the Shin-Ra Mansion. Zack, who had died so Cloud could live on, because they were the best of friends, he said.

"_First class… just like him."_

Just like Zack?

"If I'd known, I could have told his parents," Cloud murmured sadly.

"You didn't have to. She… she didn't tell you this, because… you were so sick. She wanted to wait until you were better," Tifa's eyes misted with tears. "I went with her, to their house the night we stayed in the village, before she left us. She told them… she said…"

Cloud looked at her, surprised to see how choked up Tifa was getting over remembering it, then recalled that she had confessed her own love for the ancient too. He reached over and laid his hand on her shoulder, feeling the strong muscles bunch there from hours she still spent in training.

"She said that Zack had done his duty as a Soldier, First Class. She told them of their time together, when she had been in Midgar, and presented them with a set of photo booth pictures, where they were hugging and holding up a teddy he must have won for her in the annual festivals that came through the city. Maybe they already knew, deep in their hearts after so long, maybe it was because it was Aerith who explained it… but they didn't cry; they just thanked her. And… and she smiled…then too…"

Aerith, she was always easing the pain, easing the burden of others. How did it make her feel, knowing that she would take those feelings to the grave with her? How did she manage to smile so easily?

They travelled on bike to the canyon, where they spent the night. The canyon was, for the most part, vastly unchanged. In the centre there still burned the bright Candle, reaching with hungry fingers to the sky and the stars and here, they sat together, looking back and looking up, trying to recall things together.

As they ate roasted meat from sticks they had hung over the flames, an elderly man came over and watched them for a moment, before saying in a soft voice accented by the desert: "Is one of you, by any chance, Tifa Lockhart?"

Tifa looked down just as Cloud did from the stars ahead in their celestial bower, to the man, turbaned and clothed in robes that seemed to be cool and airy. His face was a map of wrinkles, but in his hands with clever fingers, he held a scrap of paper.

"I am," she said slowly.

"I have been waiting for you, Miss Lockhart. She never said, how long it would take for you to come here. She only said, you would come one day and that when you did, to give you it."

"She?"

"A lovely girl, she said her name was Aerith. I was younger then, not much younger of course," his smile was white in the tanned skin of his face, gentle almost, "and she was so sweet. She explained to me, that people have dreams… and that you have your own, finding it somewhere, out of where you were. So, this is for you."

The paper was held out – it had been laminated to protect it from water and stains at some point and one corner was a little dog-eared, but Tifa took it all the same. Cloud leaned over to see what was written there.

_Cosmo Candle  
__Set hearts aflame with this one of a kind drink_

A whole set of ingredients were listed, but nothing as special as the flourish of 'AG' at the bottom of the page, neat and expansive all at the same time. It was this that made him smile, a little sadly.

"It can't be," Tifa gasped, "The Cosmo Candle is a closely guarded recipe!"

"I am an old man, Miss Lockhart, and there is no need for my special creations here. Take the drink, find somewhere and make good use of it. Make it special for you." He then made a gesture, "…I also added something extra. We in the Canyon are not as cut off from the world as many would like to believe. Enjoy your evening."

As he shuffled off, they turned the page over to see scrawled atop another list of ingredients and instructions:

_Lifestream  
__A drink to bring a smile to the lips of even the most beautiful Ancient_

"A signature drink," Tifa breathed, "….Aerith…"

"Is she trying to tell you what I think she's telling you?"

"Maybe… look…" At the bottom where her signature should have been was a little note instead, which she read aloud; "'Tifa, I think you'd make a fantastic cocktail bar owner. I made inquiries at other places too. Why don't you see if they helped out? Aerith.' A bar… like… Seventh Heaven was? My own place, maybe… maybe even make it an inn, in the fresh air where the kids can grow up and…"

Cloud watched her, a little enviously he had to admit, but happy at the same time. "Tifa, you know what this means?"

"I know… my dream…"

"To be free."

"To be… free…" Tifa clutched the paper, "Clues… but where?"

"Hmm well, didn't Wutai have a drink? And come to think of it, Icicle Inn did too."

"It's a wild dream," Tifa laughed, her eyes shining, "A wild and strange dream."

"But, didn't she tell you to chase them?"

"I will, I know… and…maybe tomorrow…"

"It's alright," Cloud smiled then too, a sorrowful little hitch of his mouth, "It's alright. I don't think we were meant to find out the last bits of our journeys together."

"Are you sure, that it's alright?"

"Yes."

It was fine, he knew, settling back to look at the stars. The last part of the journey was to be the sad one, the one where only he could go. Tifa was finding the dream Aerith had left her with. For him, he was close to the smile finally, closer than before.

"Tomorrow," he said to Tifa, tilting his head lazily, "You will go to Wutai and I… I will go to the Temple."

"…to there…"

"_I'm all alone…"_

To the place where 'it' had happened so long, long ago...

-------------------------------------------------------

Cloud scrutinised the rubble where the temple had been. It had taken him a week and more of heavy slog to make it to this place, but even so, looking down her felt nothing but hollow despite the jangling rush of memories that threatened to give him a headache that would take more than a couple of pills to put to sleep. He felt choked by his own bile and couldn't find the words to express it properly. It was here that they had come looking for the Black Materia and here that she had come face to face with the fate she had surely known was to be hers from the moment of birth.

How she could still come to this place and not want to scream or run and cry like a helpless little child, he did not know. He supposed that was real courage, being able to face up to the reality that was there, instead of attempting to blot it out and replace it with another more favourable reality. Cloud supposed that was what made her so perfect and him, so broken.

But Aerith did get scared, another reasonable voice told him. She was frightened of being alone, she was saddened by death and she was deeply scared and scarred by the Shin-Ra on an emotional level. She had witnessed so much and found no words for the horror, so simply let it lie dormant in her heart until the worst had passed.

She had borne it willingly, so… no one else would have to.

So here in this temple, she had found the prophecy of the Materia from the sky, of Jenova and the scriptures of her own people. What had she read here that had shaken her so badly that she had willingly just laid there as he beat on her with his fists? What was it that had extinguished the fight from someone he had only known as fierce and why, why, why! Why had she kept smiling!?

"If you'd only said something sooner, if you'd only said to us… we would have helped. We would have done anything to prevent it… but… even so, I doubt we could have prevented it. Not with the way I was then. Is that why you went away? Why, Aerith, why were you always like that?"

It wasn't selfishness, it was something worse, it was selflessness.

If she had just been an inch of selfish, he could have come to terms with it.

"This tomorrow you promised us we'd be laughing in, it's a little strange without you."

It was more than strange, it was horrific. It was twisted and cruel, mocking him with empty spaces and empty places where she should have filled. He hated thinking this way; didn't he owe it to her to live his life? But he couldn't help it, because wherever he looked, all he ever saw was that she wasn't there.

The black materia they fought for was soon taken far away from here, to somewhere in the north. He had been back there once before and managed to lose his phone in the doing of, falling into the waters of the lake where she slept now. But without words he knew without a doubt that he had to go there.

This place though, as sacred as it had once been to the Cetra filled him only with loathing, for his actions, for the Cetra and their ways and for forcing one young girl with such hope in her heart to give it up.

And thinking so, he kicked at a pebble so it sailed into the deficit where the temple had been, clinking into dusty nothingness. It wasn't enough, Cloud wanted this to be filled in with sewage and waste and all things foul to let it rot forever.

"_Hey, don't look so sad… come on, we'll look back one day on this and laugh."_

_--------------------------------------------------------------_

"_Somewhere, to the north, I feel it."_

_She was there but not there._

_If he reached out to touch her his hand would pass through her soul and he would catch nothing of the girl he loved deeply and wordlessly, he would be unable to stop her from running away breathlessly with her jacket flaring her hair bouncing, down that road to destruction, so merrily…_

"_To the north?"_

"_Just up here, there's a secret."_

_Let it stay a secret then, he wanted to howl furiously, stay with me! Stay!_

_But Cloud Strife didn't say that._

_Cloud Strife couldn't even hold her hand._

_Cloud Strife couldn't even say 'I Love You'._

…_what a loser…_

"_So… I'll be going now!" She wave a little with a giggle, like she believed she'd be just fine, "I'll be back when it's all over, so take care of your self."_

_And she was running away._

_She ran and he tried to but his dream had rooted him to the earth, his ghostly steps grazing ground but giving no quarter and he wanted to scream…_

The place Aerith had referred to was a city long forgotten by many mortals, hidden deep within a magical wood with enchantments, referred to as the Sleeping Forest, to be awoken only by an artefact called the Lunar Harp. It allowed those with Cetra blood through, for the enchantments were Cetra wrought, designed to confound only those without such Ancient magic flowing in their veins. Today though the enchantments on the forest had bent and let him come there on his motorcycle, much like the time he had furiously rode in to save the children from those thugs.

A couple of the trees by the entrance were toppled still but some animal had cleared them thoughtfully the side, the size of those animals something that the mind of Cloud did not want to linger too long upon. He parked Fenrir close to the lake and left his sword there with the many other attachable parts he had collected in his travels.

Slowly, so he could feel his bones aching, he came to sit by the edge of the water and noted how similar the water was to the pool which had collected in her church, miles away in both a sense of distance and his journey time. He had flitted from place to place, clutching at his memories of the girl who had influenced his life so deeply and continued to do so even after she was gone.

So here he was, where the final act had taken place in their short story of life together, not that of a man and his ghost. He had wanted to say he was sorry, but every night since, sobbed his apologies into clasped hands as he prayed for forgiveness to the black night, stars blinking uncertainly down on him. He had wanted to recite the words, but remained wordless even now.

He reached to the water…

_She was the angel on the altar and he was the nothingness._

_Sephiroth was the blade, Aerith was the paper; blood red ink on the flagstone and the shrieks, the deafening shrieks of the readers._

_He was reaching for her as she arched with the agony, then he was holding her. Her hand came up shaking, shaking as blood dribbled down the arm and fingertips pressed to his cheek. She left ink stains there._

_And she didn't speak, she didn't say anything, she just smiled._

_Just… smiled…_

…_he wondered what she meant in that smile, what she wanted to say?_

_But soon he was carrying her into the water as it tried to swallow them both into the luminescent depths, swallow them whole and keep them forever. He was shaking and soon came to put her to her rest._

_Still smiling, she sank down from him or maybe, she floated away, her hair wide about her. He wanted to never let her go, so he kept the pink ribbon from her hair close. Others would mimic his actions in remembrance of her, but he kept her ribbon, because it had belonged to Aerith._

_It was right that it should be his…_

"When you died, I felt so hollow," he sighed, "I was to blame, more because I loved you, and I never said so. But coming so far to this place, I have seen your actions again. I think I get it, Aerith. I think I get it, finally and I'm sorry I was… so dense. I should have realised sooner."

"_My first love," she said, looking at him._

_Looking at him more than ever. But he didn't see those eyes, only could feel confused and a little jealous. Always so jealous and possessive. "Oh," was about all he said and she covered for the disappointment with a smile._

"Everything, you did and said…"

"_You'll take me on it one day?" She gasped, as her eyes shone, "Really? I can't wait."_

"You reached out to me. I pretended not to see how hurt you were, because you were Aerith, nothing bad could happen to someone I love, right?" He laughed softly, "Nothing."

"_The Cetra… Sephiroth and myself… Jenova… but, I really am all alone now," she huddled over her knees, her expression grim._

_He wanted to touch her shoulders and wondered if her skin would burn his like the candle he sat next to, he wanted that closeness. "Does that mean we can't help?"_

_Her green eyes searched his helplessly; she was waiting for him to say it first, then she looked to the side, covering that despair. Covering her hurt up and pretending, the world class actress that she was, that she wasn't hurt in the slightest._

"All that hurt, all that pain, and at the end, we'd come so very far… and you smiled at me." Cloud looked over the water, his own eyes misty, "I wanted to tell you, but in that smile, you said to me, 'Everything's alright now Cloud' and 'I did it'. But most of all, the smile that I loved, you told me you loved me too." He reached up and wiped at his eyes, "…and that's enough."

_She reached up to his cheek, fingertips trembling and her chest heaving, trying to pull the air into lungs that betrayed her. He could see the words in her eyes now, he could see the shining moments they had burned together with the flames of their lives. He pursed his lips to speak, but she just smiled._

…_she smiled… because she knew…_

"…it's enough, to be loved, isn't it?" He murmured.

His phone rumbled in his pocket and he flicked it open upon pulling it clear of the material, pressing it to his ear, "Strife."

"_Cloud, hey guess what!"_

"Tifa?" He blinked, "What?"

"_Remember that place we visited in Snow Village? Well, turns out the deed belonged to Aerith's father. She's willed the place to us Cloud, the entire place, they've spent so long looking to get in touch with us."_

"Wow, Tifa…" he said.

"_Isn't it great? I'm going to open a bar here Cloud, I got all these great recipes, and it's so far away from the noisy city. Somewhere cosy like home used to be, it'll be perfect."_

"It sounds it."

"_Did you figure it out?"_

"Yeah."

"_I'm so glad for you. Come here as soon as you can, alright? There are all kinds of stuff."_

"Stuff?"

"_Aerith's stuff, from her childhood, her mother's things… it's amazing really. Oh and Cloud?"_

"What?"

"_I think I'm going to call it Ancient's Paradise."_

"The bar?"

"_Sounds right, I think. Anyway, swing by soon!"_

"Got it," he clicked the phone off and stared at it for a moment, then at the water. He sighed and looked out across the film of the sunshine from the surface, then slowly stood up and brushed down his knees. Reluctant to leave, he knew her had to go to be able to get anything done.

But just as he was getting ready to settle back onto Fenrir and drop by Aerith's home, he felt the phone buzz against his pocket again and pulled it out. Seeing that it said 'multimedia' he pressed the buttons and opened the attached file.

The smile of his dreams stared up at him from the phone face.

"….how…?" He said softly.

-------------------------------------------------------------

_She closed the cover to the phone he had thought lost, looking across at the fields of changing seasons and rippling grass, the flowers waving and bobbing and the clouds, perfectly white and puffy as they sailed over an azure sky. She tucked it into her jacket pocket and straightened, walking along in the grass of this sometime place that was her own private and Promised Land, her very own. Feeling the sun on her face, she ignored the tears of joy and instead, smiled…_


End file.
